Tug-of-War

We divided and conquered for dinner. Wife: Italian place, parking lot, quadrant A. Me: quadrant B, yuppie taco joint, the one that puts crack in their cheese dip. I'm not kidding, ask anyone who goes.

There's a trick yuppie taco goers know about the place (please note: one need not be a yuppie to gain regular status. Just blend in, man.) The trick is skip the perpetual line out the door and walk directly to the bar. You'll shave off twenty minutes. But the taco shop has tricks of its own--rules, country club code. Some days it feels just like Cheers, but other days it can be like walking into Abercrombie.

Rule 1) Do not, under any circumstances, sit down before you order. There's a juicy rumor going around about the guy who fought back. They pulled a Soup Nazi on him. He's banned for life.

Rule 2.) Do not push tables together to accommodate a large group. Mustached Manager must be notified in advance (read: twenty people deep in line. They do not take reservations.)

Rule 3.) To order take-out, you must wait until the take-out 'orderee' before you has received his food.

A restaurant that serves hundreds of people every day during lunch can't handle more than one "to-go" order at a time? Rule 3 kept me waiting for forty-five minutes. I couldn't help but think of the INS, and Annabelle's immigration papers we've been waiting on for months and months and months. It's a reminder that sometimes it's not an issue of having done all of the right things, or having called all of the right people. Some things are simply out of our control. The taco place is clear about this. The INS is clear about this. Nature is clear about this.

Before the hurricane we had some heavy rains that kept everyone at home, or slowly creeping there from offices. I stood on the balcony of our apartments looking out at the downpour in amazement. All it takes is some rain, some wind, to stop a man, a woman, from laboring. We are not in control no matter how desperately we try.

posted by Cameron Lawrence at 23:43